Dalip Singh Saund
My Mother India

II. THE HINDU IDEAL OF MARRIAGE

IRRESPONSIBLE writers have discussed the marriage system of India
in so irrational and inaccurate a manner that the name India has
become, in the mind of the westerner, synonymous with child marriage.
These writers have tried to show that child marriage is the result of
a law of the Hindu religion, which, according to them, strictly
enjoins the parents to enforce the marriage of their daughters at a
tender age under penalty of heavenly vengeance. They say that the law
enjoins that girls shall be married before the age of puberty, and, as
a result, the majority of Hindu girls become mothers nine months after
reaching puberty. One such writer [Katherine Mayo] picks a few lines
from the Hindu poet Tagore's essay in Keyserling's Book of Marriage,
and, mutilating its text by clever omissions, misquotes it to prove
the poet a defender of child marriage. This unholy attempt of the
author to misrepresent the noted poet and philosopher deserves strong
censure. In this chapter we shall discuss the facts about marriage in
India and its allied subject of child marriage.

The Hindu religion strictly forbids child marriage. The following
quotation from the Rig Veda explains the ideal of marriage:

"Woman is to be man's comrade in life, his Sakhi, with the same
range of knowledge and interests, mature in body, mind and
understanding, able to enter into a purposeful union on equal terms
with a man of equal status, as life partner, of her own free
choice, both dedicating their life-work as service to the divine
Lord of the Universe, both ready to fulfil the purpose of married
life from the day of marriage onward."
[Quoted from Cousins-Awakening of Asian Womanhood, page 40.]

The western method of marriage through courtship is, however, not
the rule in India. Though the courtship method is being widely copied
among the educated classes in the country, the prevailing custom of
marriage is still through the choice of parents. In earlier times
marriage by the Svayambara system, in which the maiden freely selected
her future mate from a group of suitors, was commonly practised. This
practice was discontinued, however, with the invasion of India by
the foreigners because of the desire of the Indians to keep the pure
Aryan stock uncontaminated by foreign blood. Since that time the boys
and girls are mated through the choice of their parents. This custom
may be defended on wide social and eugenic grounds. The contention is
that the complete dominance of sentiment and individual desire in
the courtship method of marriage, is harmful to social discipline,
and is, as a rule, detrimental to the race. Marriage is a sacred bond
and must be based on an ideal of the spiritual union of the souls, and
not on the lower desires for sense pleasures.

In order to enable the reader to understand fully the principles
underlying Hindu marriage it will be necessary to acquaint him with
the fundamental characteristics which form the basis of the social
structure of group life in India. One distinctive feature in the study
of India is the collective character of its communal life. Hindu
society was established on a basis of group morality. Society was
divided into different classes or communities; "and while no absolute
ethical code was held binding on all classes alike, yet within a given
class (or caste) the freedom of the individual must be subordinated to
the interest of the group. The concept of duty was paramount."
[Coomaraswamy] Social purpose must be served first, and the social
order was placed before the happiness of the individual, whether mean
or woman.

In India the origin of marriage did not lie in passion. Marriage
was entered into, not to satisfy desire on the part of either man or
woman, but to fulfill a purpose in life. It was the duty of every
individual during life to marry and propagate for the continuation of
the race. His marital union did not depend upon the caprice of his
will; it was required of him as a social obligation. No individual's
life was considered complete without an offspring. To both man and
woman marriage was the most conclusive of all incidents in life; it
was the fulfillment of one's whole being. Marriage was not sought as
the satisfaction of human feelings but as "the fulfilment of a ritual
duty to the family in its relation to the Divine Spirit." "The
happiness and fruition of family life were sought not in the tumults
of passion, but in the calm and ordered affection of a disciplined and
worshipful pair." That strong sexual passion which has been so
beautifully sanctified by the grace of poetry and hallowed by the name
of romantic love, and which is the source of immense force and power
in many a young life in the West, is called by the Hindu idealist "an
earthly desire and an illusion."

Love as an expression of sentiment is transitory. People who once
fall in love may after some time and for similar reasons fall out of
love. Hence if the ideal basis for the union of the sexes is to be
mutual passion, an arrangement must be provided so that simultaneously
with a break in the fascination on either side, the marriage between
the parties shall come to an end. Yet under the existing conditions
over the entire civilized world it would not be possible to make the
marriage laws as lax as that. So long as such an arrangement remains
untried, and so long as there is any truth in the statement that human
hearts are to a high degree fickle, it must follow that successful
marriages should have other sources of lasting satisfaction than
romantic love. On observation, we find that most marriages, which were
entered into on the strict principle of mutual love, hold together
from habit, from considerations of prudence, and from duty towards
children long after lovers' joy has totally disappeared from the lives
of the couple. The glimmer of first love very soon fades into
nothingness. Closer acquaintance brings to light faults which the
lover's eyes in days of romance had stubbornly refused to see. Unless
the parties are possessed of sensitive souls, unless after a serious
search for a foothold they find a basis of com- mon interest and
common hobbies, and unless their mutuality of temperament is found
adequate for friendship, there is left for their future relationships
no happiness. Why, then, excite one's imagination in the beginning,
and permit oneself to be deluded by such obviously foolish hopes?

The Hindu system of marriage reverses these considerations. There,
marriage is a form of vocation, a fulfillment of a social duty, it is
not the enjoyment of individual rights. In its ethics, designed for
the communal basis of life, individual desire and pleasures must be
subordinated to the interest of group morality. "Thus the social
order is placed before the happiness of the individual, whether man
or woman. This is the explanation of the greater peace which
distinguishes the arranged marriage of the East from the self-chosen
marriage of the West; where there is no deception there can be no
disappointment." [Coomaraswamy-Dance of Siva, page 88.]

In this manner the champions of the system justify the Indian
method of marriage, in which marriages are arranged by the parents or
relatives. But, however ably its partisans may defend the old system,
and in whatever glowing colors they may exhibit its spiritual values,
it must go sooner or later. With changing times the ideals that govern
Indian society have changed also. Men and women of the present day are
demanding their individual freedom after the fashion of their brothers
and sisters in the West. Rightly or wrongly, they feel a desire to
express themselves according to the spontaneous dictates of the
heart. Simultaneously with the industrialization of the country the
restraints put upon the individual from outside through the medium of
social and religious laws are fast disappearing. The younger
generation of the Indian nation appears more concerned for rights than
for duties.

Those who care may lament over the past, but we shall welcome the
change with joy, because it brings new light and new hope into the
stereotyped and set system of Indian life. Marriage in human society
is after all nothing but a plunge into the unknown ocean of the
future. Its ultimate outcome alone can tell whether the entrants were
destined to sink or swim. [Tagore.] Marriage has been a lottery in
the past, and it will remain so in the future, unless our lives are so
modulated as to give to the forces of the spirit a larger and a freer
scope. It is impious blasphemy to seek to stifle the celestial senses,
instead of guiding and harmonizing them. It is hoped, however, that in
their new role as imitators of the West, men of India will not change
their attitude of tenderness, confidence, respect, and delicacy
towards the female sex; and that the women of India will retain the
calmness and dignity of their attitude, the self-respect and poise of
their inner life.

All classes in India idolize motherhood. Among no people in the
world are mothers more loved, honored, and obeyed than among
Indians. It might be interesting to point out that a pregnant woman in
India has nothing of which to be ashamed or which she wishes to
hide. She is considered auspicious and must be accorded high respect
and consideration. We sometimes believe that the East Indian's high
good humor and calm in life are the fruits of the Indian mother's
unusual cheer and hope during the period of pregnancy. How unlike the
attitude of the Indian is to the westerner's silly notions of beauty,
fine shape, and grace wherein pregnancy is made an object of more or
less open ridicule. Would that the women of America and other western
countries would forsake their restlessness and nervousness and learn
from their humbler eastern sisters the art of possessing poise,
composure, and serenity! Would that they would imitate the eastern
mother's delicate benevolence, generosity of heart, loftiness of mind,
and independence and pride of character!

This subject of marriage is so important a matter to India that we
desire to elucidate still further the ideals underlying it. We shall
quote at length from Keyserling's Book of Marridge an essay by Tagore,
than whom no one is better fitted to speak. Says Tagore:

"Another way for the better understanding by the European of the
mentality underlying our marriage system would be by reference to
the discussions on eugenics which are a feature of modern
Europe. The science of eugenics, like all other sciences, attaches
but little weight to personal sentiment. According to it, selection
by personal inclination must be rigorously regulated for the sake
of the progeny. If the principle involved be once admitted,
marriage needs must be rescued from the control of the heart, and
brought under the province of the intellect; otherwise insoluble
problems will keep on arising, for passion [42] recks not of
consequences, nor brooks interfer ence by outside judges.

"Here the question arises: If desire be banished from the very
threshold of marriage, how can love find any place in the wedded
life? Those who have no true acquaintance with our country, and
whose marriage system is entirely different, take it for granted
that the Hindu marriage is loveless. But do we not know of our own
knowledge how false is such a conclusion?

" . . Therefore, from their earliest years, the husband as an
idea is held up before our girls, in verse and poetry, through
ceremonial and worship. When at length they get this husband, he is
to them not a person but a principle, like loyalty, patriotism, or
such other abstractions which owe their immense strength to the
fact that the best part of them is our own creation and therefore
part of our own being."

The poet then offers his own personal contribution to the
discussion of the marriage question generally and concludes thus:

"This shakti, this joy-giving power of woman as the beloved, has
up to now largely been dissipated by the greed of man, who has
sought to use it for the purposes of his individual enjoyment,
corrupting it, confining it, like his property, within jealously
guarded limit. That has also obstructed for woman herself her
inward realization of the full glory of her own shakti. Her
personality has been insulted at every turn by being made to
display its power of delectation within a circumscribed arena. It
is because she has not found her true place in the great world that
she sometimes tries to capture man's special estate as a desperate
means of coming into her own. But it is not by coming out of her
home that woman can gain her liberty. Her liberation can only be
effected in a society where her true shakti, her ananda (joy) is
given the widest and highest scope for its activity. Man has
already achieved the means of self-expansion in public activity
without giving up his individual concerns. When, likewise, any
society shall be able to offer a larger field for the creative work
of woman's special faculty, without detracting from her creative
work in the home, then in such society will the true union of man
and woman become possible.

"The marriage system all over the world, from the earliest ages
till now, is a barrier in the way of such true union. That is why
woman's shakti, in all existing societies, is so shamefully wasted
and corrupted. That is why in every country marriage is still more
or less of a prison-house for the confinement of women-with all its
guards wearing the badge of the dominant male. That is why man, by
dint of his efforts to bind woman, has made her the strongest of
fetters for his own bondage. That is why woman is debarred from
adding to the spiritual wealth of society by the perfection of her
own nature, and all human societies are weighed down with the
burden of the resulting poverty.

"The civilization of man has not, up to now, loyally recognized
the reign of the spirit. Therefore the married state is still one
of the most fruitful sources of the unhappiness and downfall of
man, of his disgrace and humiliation. But those who believe that
society is a manifestation of the spirit will assuredly not rest in
their endeavors till they have rescued human marriage relations
from outrage by the brute forces of society-till they have
thereby given free play to the force of love in all the concerns of
humanity."

Such is the Hindu poet's explanation of the ideals underlying the
institution of marriage in the communal society of the Hindus. One
feels through his closing lines the poet's sorrow at the sight of the
misery caused by a wrong conception of marriage throughout the
civilized world. The poet cherishes, however, the fond hope that a day
of the reign of spirit will dawn over the world, when mankind will
recognize the necessity of giving to the forces of love a free play in
the wide concerns of life.

Marriage in India involves two separate ceremonies. The first
ceremony is the more elaborate, and judging from the permanent
character of its obligations, the more important. It is performed amid
much festivity and show. The bridal party, consisting of the
bridegroom with his chief relatives and friends, goes to the bride's
home in an elaborate musical procession. There the party is handsomely
feasted as guests of the bride for one or more days, according to the
means of the host. The groom furnishes the entertainment, which
consists of music, acrobatic dancing, jugglers' tricks, fireworks, and
so forth. The day is spent in simple outdoor amusements like hunting,
horseback riding, swimming, or gymnastic plays, the nature of the
sport depending upon the surroundings. In the evening, by the light of
the fireworks, and in the midst of a large crowd of near relatives and
spectators, the ceremony near relatives of the bride and the
bridegroom, is staged in a highly picturesque manner. In order of
their relation to the bride and groom-father of the of the "union,"
namely, the spiritual unification of the bride with the father of the
bridegroom, first uncle of the one with the first uncle of the other,
and so forth---the near relatives of the future couple embrace each
other and exchange head-dresses as a symbol of eternal
friendship. Each such pledge of friendship is beautifully harmonized
with a song and a blessing from the daughters of the village. Later in
the evening, the girls lead the guests to the bridal feast, singing in
chorus on their march the "Welcome Home."

Marriage in the Indian home is thus an occasion of great
rejoicing. The atmosphere that prevails throughout the entire ceremony
is one of extreme wholesomeness and joy. Nothing could surpass the
loveliness and charm that surrounds the evening march to the bridal
feast. The pretty maidens of the village, who are conscious of their
dignity as personifications of the Deity and are inspired with a
devoted love for their sister bride, come in their gay festival
dresses, with mingled feelings of pride and modesty, to lead the
procession with a song; their eyes moistened with slowly gathering
tears of deep and chaste emotion, and their faces wrapped in ever
changing blushes, give to the whole picture a distinctive flavor of an
inspiring nature. On the following morning the couple are united in
marriage by the officiating priest, who reads from the scriptures
while the husband and wife pace together the seven steps. The vow of
equal comradeship which is taken by both the husband and the wife on
this occasion reads thus:

"Become thou my partner, as thou hast paced all the seven steps
with me. . . . Apart from thee I cannot live. Apart from me do thou
not live. We shall live together; we each shall be an object of
love to the other; we shall be a source of joy each unto the other;
with mutual goodwill shall we live together."
[Quoted from Cousins-The Awakening of Asian Womanhood, page 38.]

The marriage ceremony being over, the bridal party departs with the
bride for the bridegroom's home. On this first trip the bride is
accompanied by a maid, and the two return home together after an
overnight's stay. The bride then remains at her parental home until
the performance of the second ceremony. The interval between the two
ceremonies varies from a few days to several years, depending mainly
upon the ages of the married couple and the husband's ability to
support a home.

This dual ceremonial has been the cause of a great deal of confusion
in the western mind. To all appearances the first ceremony is the more
important as it is termed marriage. After it the bride begins to dress
and behave like a married woman, but the couple do not begin to live
together until the second ceremony has also been performed, and these
two acts may be separated from each other by a considerably long
period. In other words the so-called marriage of the Hindu girl is
nothing but "an indefeasible betrothal in the western sense." The
custom of early marriage (or betrothal, to be more exact) has existed
in some parts of the country from earlier times, but it became more
common during the period of the Mohammedan invasions into India. These
foreign invaders were in the habit of forcibly converting to Islam the
beautiful Hindu maidens, whom they later married. But no devout
Mohammedan ever injures or thinks evil towards a married woman. His
religion strictly forbids such practice. Thus, to safeguard the honor
of their young daughters the Hindus adopted this custom of early
marriage.

The girl's marriage, however, makes no change in her life. She
continues to live with her parents as before, and is there taught
under her mother's supervision the elementary duties of a
household. She is instructed at the same time in other matters
concerning a woman's life. When she becomes of an age to take upon
herself the responsibilities of married life, the second marriage
ceremony is finished and she departs for her new home.

It is true that the standard of education among East Indian women
as compared with that of other countries is appallingly low. We shall
leave the discussion of the various political factors which have
contributed to this deplorable state of things for a later
chapter. For the present it will be sufficient to point out that even
though the Indian girl is illiterate and unable to read and write, she
is not uninstructed or uninformed in the proper sense of the word
education.

She knows how to cook, to sew, to embroider, and to do every other
kind of household work. She is fully informed concerning matters of
hygiene and sex. In matters intellectual her mind is developed to the
extent that "she understands thoroughly the various tenets of her
religion and is quite familiar with Hindu legends and the subject
matter in the epic literature of India."

My mother was the daughter of a village carpenter. She was brought
up in the village under the exclusive guidance of her mother and did
not have any school education. Mother, in her turn, has reared seven
children who have all grown to be perfectly healthy and normal boys
and girls. Even though we could easily afford a family doctor, we
never had one. Mother seemed to know so much about hygienic and
medical science that she did not need a doctor. Her little knowledge
she had acquired from her own mother; it consisted of a few simple
rules, which she observed very faithfully. As little children, we were
required to clean our teeth with a fresh twig, to be individually
chewed into a brush, every morning before breakfast, and to wash the
mouth thoroughly with water after each meal. For the morning teeth
cleaning we were supplied with twigs from a special kind of tree which
leaves in the mouth a very pleasant taste and contains juices of a
beneficial nature. Also, chewing a small twig every morning gives good
exercise to the teeth and furnishes the advantage of a new brush each
time. We were told that dirty teeth were unmannerly and hurt a
person's eyesight and general heath. A cold water bath once a day and
washing of both hands before and after each meal were other
fundamental requirements.

For every kind of family sickness, whether it was a headache, a
fever, a cold in the head, or a bad cough, the prescription was always
the same. A mixture of simple herbs was boiled in water and given to
the patient for drinking. Its only effect was a motion of the
bowels. It was not a purgative, but had very mild and wholesome
laxative properties without any after reactions. Fasting during
sickness was highly recommended. In nearly every month occurred some
special festival day on which the whole family fasted. This fast had a
purifying effect on the systems of growing children. As another
precautionary measure, my mother prepared for the children, every
winter, a special kind of preserve from a bitter variety of black
beans, which is supposed to possess powerful blood-purifying
properties. With the exception of quinine during malarial epidemics,
we were never given any drugs whatsoever. These simple medicines,
combined with a fresh vegetable diet for every day in the year,
constituted my mother's only safeguards against family sickness. And
from my knowledge I know that her system worked miraculously well.

During pregnancy it is customary to surround the young girl with
every precaution. She returns to her parental home in order to secure
freedom from sexual intercourse during that period. In the months
before my eldest sister bore her first child, I remember how she was
instructed not to permit herself to be excited in any way. Pictures of
the ideal wife, Sita, and of national heroes and heroines were hung
all over the house for my sister to look at and admire. She was freed
from all household responsibilities in order that she could devote her
time to reading good stories from the Hindu epics. Every kind of
irritant, like pepper and spices, was rigidly excluded from her diet,
and after the child was born she refrained from injudicious
combinations of food until the child was a year or more old.

Every night at bedtime my mother had a new story to tell the
children, a story which she herself had heard at bedtime when she was
young. These stories were drawn from the great Hindu epics, and there
was always a useful maxim connected with them. The tale was told to
bring home to the growing children some moral maxim like truthfulness,
fidelity to a pledge once given, conjugal happiness, and respect for
parents. In this manner the children in the most ignorant homes become
familiar with the ethical teachings of their nation and with the
hypotheses underlying their respective religions. Almost everyone in
India down to the most ignorant countrywoman understands the subtle
meaning of such intricate Hindu doctrines as the laws of Karma, the
theory of reincarnation, and the philosophy of Maya.

As was stated earlier in this chapter, much misinformation about
the so-called child marriage has been spread by ignorant missionaries,
and has been eagerly swallowed by most western readers. It may be well
to observe here that the two expressions "child marriage" and "early
marriage" are very widely apart in meaning. The psychological
impressions conveyed by the two expressions are distinctly different.
If the first ceremony of the Hindu marriage is to be taken as meaning
marriage, what is practised in India perhaps more than anywhere else
in the world is early marriage and not child marriage. Even at that,
early marriage is essentially wrong in principle. Its usefulness in
earlier times, when it was first recommended by the Hindu lawgivers as
a necessary measure to preserve the communal life of the nation,
cannot be denied.

Like many other laws of those times, it has outlived its
usefulness, and through the influence of many corruptions which have
been added to the practice during ages, it has become a curse to the
country. This fact is frankly admitted by the leaders of modern
India. In the writings and speeches of the most prominent among them
the custom of early marriage has been condemned as a "deadly vermin
in Hindu social life," and a "ghastly form of injustice." Beginning
with the days of the eminent Hindu reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the
whole literature of social and religious reform in India is full of
loud and emphatic denunciations of early marriage.

As a result of the untiring, self-sacrificing efforts of Hindu
reformers a great measure of success has already been achieved. The
Hindu girl's age of marriage has been steadily increasing during the
last fifty years. According to figures from the official Census
Report of India (1921) only 399 out of every 1000 girls were married
at the end of their fifteenth year. In other words, 60 per cent of
Indian girls remained unmarried at the beginning of their sixteenth
year. Moreover, in the official records of India every girl who has
passed through the first ceremony of her marriage is included in the
married class. If we allow a little further concession on account of
the warmer climate of India, which has the tendency to lower the age
of maturity in girls, we shall concede that the present conditions in
India in respect to early marriage are not strikingly different from
those in most European countries. At the same time it must not be
forgotten that in India sex life begins invariably after marriage, and
never before marriage. Those familiar with the conditions in the
western countries know that such is not always the rule there.

One evening the writer was talking in rather favorable terms to a
small group of friends about the Hindu system of marriage. While
several nodded their habitual, matter-of-fact, courteous assent, one
young lady (Dorothy), a classmate and an intimate friend, suddenly
said in an impatient tone, "This is all very foolish. By using those
sweet expressions in connection with the Hindu family life you do not
mean to tell me that marriage between two strangers, who have never
met in life before, or known each other, can be ever happy or
just. `Felicity,' `peace,' `harmony,' `wedded love,' `idealization of
the husband'-this is all bunk. That you should approve the blindfold
yoking together for life of innocent children in indefeasible
marriage, is outrageous. The system is shocking; it is a sin against
decency. It is war against the most sacred of human instincts and
emotions, and as such I shall condemn it as criminal and uncivilized."
Yet the young lady was in no sense of the word unsympathetic or
unfriendly to India. She is, and has always been, a great friend and
admirer of India.

Dorothy is not much of a thinker, but she is very liberal and likes
to be called a radical. You could discuss with her any subject
whatsoever, even Free Love and Birth Control, with perfect ease and
lack of restraint. She is twenty-five years of age and unmarried. She
has been "in love" several times, but for one reason or the other she
has not yet found her ideal man. She would not tell this to
everybody, but to one of her boy friends, "whose big blue eyes had
poetic inspiration in them," and who seemed to be fine and good and
true in every way, better than the best she had ever met before, and
whom she loved quite genuinely, she had given herself completely on
one occasion. This happened during a week-end trip to the mountains,
and was the first and last of her sexual experience. She said it was
the moral as well as the physical feast of her life. Later she saw him
flirting in a doubtful manner with a coarse Spanish girl, which made
him loathsome in her eyes. Gradually her love for him began to
dwindle, until it died off completely, leaving behind, however, a deep
mortal scar in her spiritual nature. For a period, Dorothy thought she
could never love any man again, until she began to admire a young
college instructor in a mild fashion. He is, however, "so kind and
intelligent and different from the rest," with a fine physique and
handsome face-his powerful forehead setting so beautifully against his
thick curly hair-that she calls magnificent. It matters little that he
is married, because she writes him the most enchanting
letters. Dorothy's love for the handsome professor is platonic. She
says it will exist forever, even though she entertains no hope of ever
marrying him. Yet while she talked about her latest "ideal," a stream
of tears gathered slowly in her big luminous eyes. They were the
tears of hopeless resignation. Dorothy is beautiful, and possesses
rare grace and charm of both body and mind. She is well situated in
the business world, and is not in want of men admirers. But yet she is
unhappy, extremely unhappy. She has had the freedom, but no training
to make proper use of it. While she was still in her early teens she
started going on picnic parties with different boys. Under the impulse
of youthful passion she learned to kiss any one and every one in an
indiscriminate fashion. This destroyed the sanctity of her own moral
and spiritual nature, and also killed, at the same time, her respect
for the male sex. Sacredness of sex and respect for man being thus
destroyed in her early years, she could not easily find an ideal
husband in later life. If she had been a stupid creature with no
imagination and no deep finer feelings she would have fallen suddenly
in love anywhere-there to pass the rest of her humdrum and joyless
existence in an everlasting stupor. Surely Dorothy did not remember
her own tragedy when she condemned the lot of the Hindu girls in such
vehement manner. Vanity is an ugly fault, yet it gives great pleasure.

Unlike India, where from their very childhood girls are initiated
into matters of sex, and where the ideal of acquiring a husband and a
family is kept before their minds from the beginning, American boys
and girls are brought up in utter ignorance of every thing pertaining
to sex. Sex is considered as something unclean, filthy, and nauseous,
and so unworthy of the attention and thought of young children. And
yet there is no country in the world where sex is kept more
prominently before the public eye in every walk of daily life than in
America. The first impression which a stranger landing in America gets
is of the predominance of sex in its daily life. The desire of the
American woman to show her figure to what Americans call "the coarse
eye of man," expresses itself in short skirts and tight
dresses. "American movies are made with no other purpose in view than
to emphasize sex." A college professor was recently told by one of the
six biggest directors of motion pictures in Hollywood, through whose
hands passed a business amounting to millions of dollars, that in
making a motion picture sex must constantly be borne in mind. The
story must be based on that knowledge, scenes selected with this view,
and the plot executed with that thought in mind. Vaudeville shows,
one of America's national amusements, are nothing but a suggestive
display of the beautiful legs of young girls, who appear on the stage
scantily dressed and touch their foreheads with the toes in a highly
suggestive manner.

The writer was told by an elderly American lady that the American
national dances had a deep religious connotation. A spiritual thought
may exist behind American music, and its effect on the American youth
may be quite uplifting, but certainly such dances as the one called
"Button shining dance," in which a specially close posture is
necessary, was invented with no high spiritual end in view. A
wholesale public display of bare legs to the hips, and a close view of
the rest of their bodies in tight bathing suits may be seen on the
national beaches. Young couples lie on the sands in public view
closely locked in seemingly everlasting embraces.

While all this may be very pure, innocent, harmless, and even
uplifting in its hidden nature, its outward and more prevalent
character indicates an almost vicious result of the ideal of bringing
up the nation's youth improperly instructed in matters of sex and its
proper function.

The immediate effect of this anomalous condition in America
resulting from the misinstruction regarding sex by its youth on the
one hand, and the most exaggerated prominence given sex in its
national life is particularly disastrous and excessively humiliating.
Using the word moral in its popular conventional meaning, it may be
very frankly said that the morals of the American youth are anything
but exemplary. Judge Ben B. Lindsey, who is fully authorized to speak
on the subject from his experience as head of the Juvenile court in
Denver for over twenty-five years, and who is one of the keenest
contemporary thinkers in America, has stated facts in his book, The
Revolt of Modern Youth, which are appalling. He writes:

"The first item in the testimony of the high school students is
that of all the youth who go to parties, attend dances, and ride
together in automobiles, more than 90 per cent indulge in hugging
and kissing. This does not mean that every girl lets any boy hug
and kiss her, but that she is hugged and kissed.

"The second part of the message is this. At least 50 per cent
of those who begin with hugging and kissing do not restrict
themselves to that, but go further, and indulge in other sex
liberties which, by all the conventions, are outrageously
improper.

"Now for the third part of the message. It is this: Fifteen to
twenty-five per cent of those who begin with the hugging and
kissing eventually `go the limit.' This does not, in most
cases, mean either promiscuity or frequency, but it happens."
[Pages 56, 59, 62.]

This situation is alarming, and the leaders of the country must
take immediate notice of it. When fifteen to twenty-five girls out of
every hundred in any country indulge in irresponsible sexual
relationships between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, that country
is not in a healthy moral condition. The effect of these early sexual
intimacies between young girls and boys is ruinous to their later
spiritual growth. How the situation may be remedied is a serious
problem, which is not the task of any foreigner, however honest and
friendly, to solve.

It may be of value to point out here how the Hindu thinkers sought
to control this situation. We quoted above the frank opinion of an
American college girl regarding the Hindu system of marriage. The ill
opinion of the Hindu system of marriage held by most westerners,
springs, however, not from their knowledge of the situation, but from
its very novelty, and from the dissociation of the name romance from
its system. The western method of marriage emphasizes freedom for the
individual, and as such its fundamental basis is both noble and
praiseworthy. From the exercise of freedom have developed some of the
finest traits of character; freedom, in fact, has been the source of
inspiraton for the highest achievements of the human race. But freedom
in sex relationship without proper knowledge transforms itself into
license, as its exercise in the commercial relationships of the world
without sympathy and vision develops into tyranny. An illustration
of the former consequence may be seen in the disastrous effect of the
wrong kind of freedom on the morals of the American youth; the slums
of the industrial world are the results of the laissez faire policy
when it is allowed to proceed unchecked, on its reckless career.

In India marriage is regarded as a necessity in life; in the case
of woman it is the most conclusive of all incidents, the one action to
which all else in life is subsidiary. From marriage springs not only
her whole happiness, but on it also depends the fulfilment of her very
life. Marriage to a woman is a sacrament-an entrance into the higher
and holier regions of love and consecration-and motherhood is to her a
thing of pride and duty. From childhood she has been trained to be the
ideal of the husband whom marriage gives her. Dropping longingly into
the embrace of her husband with almost divine confidence in his
protection and love, she begins to look at the whole universe in a
different light. "Are the heavens and the earth so suddenly
transformed? Do the birds and trees, the stars and the heavens above,
take on a more brilliant coloring, and the wind begin to murmur a
sweeter music?" Or is it true that she is herself transformed at the
gentle touch of him who is henceforth to be her lord? So limitless is
the power of human emotion that we can create in our own imagination
scenes of a joyful existence, which, when they are finally realized,
bring about miraculous changes in us almost overnight. This miracle is
no fiction; it is a reality. An overnight's blissful acquaintance with
her husband has altered the constitution of many a girl's body and
given to her figure nobler curves. I have seen my own sister given in
marriage, a girl of 18, a slender, playful, fond child with barely a
sign of womanhood in her habits and carriage; and after a month when I
went for a visit to her home I found it difficult to recognize my own
sister. How suddenly had the marital union transformed her! In the
place of a slender, sprightly girl was now a plump woman with a
blooming figure, seeming surcharged with radiant energy; in the place
of a straight childish look in the eyes there was a look of happiness,
wisdom, understanding that was inspiring and ennobling. The atmosphere
around my sister, once a girl, now a woman, was of such a divine
character and her appearance expressed such exquisite joy that I fell
spontaneously into her arms, and before we separated our eyes were wet
with tears of joy. Seeing my sister so beautiful and so happy, I was
happy; and in her moment of supreme joy her brother, the beloved
companion of early days, became doubly dear to her. Some moments in
our lives are difficult, nay, impossible to forget. This experience
was of so illuminating a nature that it is still as vivid in my mind
as if it had happened yesterday.

The explanation is very simple. In the mind of my sister, as in the
mind of every other Indian girl, the idea of a husband had been
uppermost since her very childhood. Around his noble appearance, fine
carriage, and handsome expression she must have woven many a beautiful
story. Each time she saw one of her girl friends given in marriage to
a "flower-crowned bride, groom, dressed in saffron-colored clothes,
riding in procession on a decorated horse," and accompanied by music
and festivity, she must have dreamed. And then when the ideal of her
childhood was realized, no wonder she found in his company that height
of emotional exaltation which springs from the proper union of the
sexes and is the noblest gift of God to man. The American girl thinks
my sister married a stranger, but she had married an ideal, a creation
of her imagination, and a part of her own being.

The wise Hindu system which keeps the idea of a husband before the
girls from their childhood will not be easily understood by the
conventional western mind. Those who consider sex as something
"unclean and filthy" and have formed the conviction that its thoughts
and its very name must be strictly kept away from growing children
must learn two fundamental truths. In the first place, nothing in sex
is filthy or unclean; on the other hand, sex is "the purest and the
loveliest thing in life and if properly managed is emotionally
exalting and highly uplifting for our moral and spiritual
development." [Ben B. Lindsey] Secondly, to imagine that by
maintaining a conspiracy of silence on the subject of sex one can
exclude its thought totally from the lives of growing children is to
betray in the grossest form ignorance of natural laws.

In India, however, sex is considered a necessary part of a healthy
individual's life; it is a sacred and a lovely thing; and, as such, it
is to be carefully examined and carefully cultivated. The sexual
impulse is recognized as the strongest of human impulses, and any
attempt to thwart it by outside force must result in disaster to the
individual and in ruin to social welfare. To overcome sex hunger by
keeping people ignorant of it is the meanest form of hypocrisy. To
deny facts is not to destroy them. It is not only stupid but cowardly
to imagine that one could make people moral and spiritual by keeping
them ignorant and superstitious. Show them the light, and they will
find their own way. Teach children the essentials of life, encourage
in them the habit of independent thought, show them by example and
precept the beauties of moral grandeur, and they will develop within
themselves the good qualities of self-respect and self-restraint which
will further insure against many pitfalls. Says the Hindu proverb "A
woman's best guard is her own virtue." Virtue is a thing which must
spring from within and can never be imposed from the outside.

The atmosphere in the Hindu household and the attitude of the elder
members of the family to each other is of such a nature that the boys
and girls gradually become aware of the central facts of nature. In
fact, no attempt is made to hide from the children anything about
their life functions. The subjects of marriage and child birth are
freely discussed in the family gatherings. Children are never excluded
when a brother or sister is born, and no one tells them stories of
little babies brought in baskets by the doctors or by storks. Whenever
the growing children ask curious questions about physiological facts,
they are given the necessary information to the extent that it will be
intelligible to them.

The experience in India has clearly demonstrated the fact that if
young boys and girls are properly instructed in the laws of nature,
and if the knowledge is backed up by the right kind of moral stimulus
and idealism, these young people can be relied upon to develop
invincible powers of self-restraint and self-respect. Such boys and
girls will have noble aspirations and will grow into fine-spirited men
and women of healthy moral character and of unquestionable poise. The
writer has no desire to eulogize the Hindu system of marriage, or to
disparage the Occidental. An attempt has been made to diagnose the
prevalent consequences of two systems. The Hindu customs certainly
need modification in view of the rapid economic and social changes;
the western system displays a deplorable lack of adjustment to new
conditions in those countries. The writer merely asks the reader to
remember that just because a system is different, it need not be
outrageous.